


Wren

by awfuldaycupcake



Series: Of Arrows and Aces [3]
Category: Sanders Sides, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 09:16:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13633308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awfuldaycupcake/pseuds/awfuldaycupcake
Summary: Summary: Patton isn’t completely honest. Someone else knows that feeling very well.





	Wren

 

Patton was lying on a picnic blanket. It wasn’t a strange sight, really. He liked to go to a little corner of the mindscape sometimes, and he was easily the best cook of the sides. His pastries were to die for, and what better place to enjoy a pastry than on a picnic blanket in the beautiful sunshine?

Patton, though, wasn’t eating pastries this time.

His mind was wandering. He hated when it did that. He was just lying there, staring at the sky. For once, Patton was happy to be alone. But that didn’t last long.

“What’s bothering you,  _cupcake_?” The tone of voice made Patton’s eyes shut, dread welling in his stomach. If anyone else had said that--  _anyone_ \-- it would have been adorable. From him, it was the same sensation of a snake slithering down your spine.

“Nothing!” Patton said, sounding a bit more overjoyed than he usually was.

“Taking up my tactics now, huh? I thought lying was bad,” the other side said. He was walking from somewhere unknown, amongst the blooming cherry trees. Patton loved those trees. He hated _him._  He laid down across from Patton, staring at him upside-down from the other end of the picnic blanket. It was like some gross mockery of The Fault in Our Stars. Patton hated everything about this.

_Deceit._

“You know I can see what you think, right? I  _am_ you. I am all of you.”

“You’re lying. You have no idea what’s going on in my head,” Patton said. He quickly realized what he said. “Besides! Nothing is going on in the first place!”

“Lie.”

“No! I’m fine!”

“Lie.”

“I thought you said lying was good. Why are you trying to stop me?” Patton was growing frustrated. What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t tell Deceit the problem. It would be the worst idea possible. The worst idea out there. If he were to tell anyone it would be Virgil, hands down. But… He didn’t want to bother him, did he? His dark, strange son had a habit of liking alone time. And besides, Patton would just be a bother. Virgil was Anxiety. He would worry, Patton was sure about it. He couldn’t make Virgil worry. It wasn’t in himself to do that.

Well. Maybe he could tell Logan then! Things between the two of them were… Rocky, to say the least, but it was better than bothering Virgil! Logan had been all but ignoring him after coming out as Aromantic, and asexual on top of that. But… The way he did it was so  _insensitive?_  And Patton was always the type of person to apologize first, but after  _that?_  Could he? He was hurt. He’d invested so much in that relationship, and if Logan had just  _told_ him, and didn’t do all of… this? It would be different.

So that left Roman. Huh. Roman still thought he and Logan were together. He would sit tight, planning their wedding out for them. It was partially his fault this whole thing started in the first place. But, to be fair, it was also Patton’s fault. He was the one who blindly went along with everything. He’d loved Logan. He still did, but not like that anymore. Then again. He couldn’t tell Roman. Roman wouldn’t get it. He never did. Roman thought gender was such a foreign concept, that it really didn’t exist. He was completely pansexual, which Patton thought was amazing, but… The way he spoke of gender made Patton feel like he could fade into the carpet. “A human concept!” “There’s no point!”

So. Who could he tell? He had to tell someone. He had to. It was eating him up inside.

That left one person. Well, really, it left all of the Dark Sides, didn’t it? But he needed the one that no one would believe if he ever spilled the beans. The one who could shout it from the treetops and no one would take his word for it. He needed the liar.

He needed Deceit.

“Fine. You want me to lie? I’ll lie,” Patton lied. “I think I might be gender fluid. Or at least, genderqueer. I think I’m not a man. I feel like gender is not a human concept. It’s more than that. I’m more than that. I think the two-gender binary is stupid, and really just a European thing, anyway. Some days I’m comfortable in my skin. Some days I’m not. Some days I just want to be called Mom. Other days Dad. Other days… _Ren._  Sometimes it just feels right. Sometimes I think that the other sides wouldn’t listen, and wouldn't really care anyway. Sometimes I think they don’t care what I say  _ever._ Especially… well. Especially Logan. And that’s okay. Whatever. It doesn’t bother me. Nothing does,” Patton said. That. That was true. All of it. The only lie was his opening statement, that he’d lie in the first place. The weight off of his chest was lifted. He took a deep breath.

Deceit turned, looking at Patton with that glowing yellow eye of his. “Congrats,” he said, his tone thick and laced with something. “You’re right. You did just lie to me. Surely.”

“I… What?” His tone caught Patton off guard.

“You think I can tell when you’re lying. I definitely can’t. I can’t tell that every word you just told me was truth. I can’t tell that you’re  _obviously_  a distraught mess, and that you obviously can’t tell the other sides about this. I can’t tell that that’s the reason you came to me first! I can’t tell anything…” Deceit trailed off. “Or _can_  I?”

Patton felt his heart speed up. Oh no. Oh no, this isn’t what he wanted. He thought Deceit would believe him. Patton wasn’t a liar. He  _wasn’t._ Never. But. He caught on right away.

Maybe he  _could_  read his thoughts.

“Do you see that bird up there?” Deceit pointed to a small bird, its belly a bright red. Patton glanced up at the bird. It was perched on one of the branches of the tree, a lilting song flowing from its beak. “That’s a wren.”

“I think it’s a robin, actually, I--”

“ _That_  is a wren. You? You are not a Ren. What you are is a _liar._ ” Patton looked away from the bird, his eyes meeting the yellow of the the swollen snake eye. “What you feel isn’t real, Patton. It never is.”

Patton stood up abruptly, heart beating in his chest. This was a mistake. It was a big mistake. This was all a _mistake._

Patton sunk out, sinking immediately into the Common Room. Virgil was sitting alone on the couch, headphones on and phone in hand. His eyes flickered up to Patton. Slowly, he moved to take his headphones off. “Dad?”

Patton’s heart was still beating at a million miles a minute. Noiselessly he moved to sit down next to Virgil, his breath coming in short spurts.

“Are you okay? What happened?” Virgil said.

“Nothing! Nothing. Nothing happened! I was just… I was watering the flowers in Roman’s room. Right. Watering the flowers. And I-- I ran into the dragon witch! Yeah. Crazy. Crazy stuff. She’s scary,” Patton said. Oh no. Oh no. He was a liar. He was turning into Deceit. This was bad. He was bad, and he was a bad friend, and he--

But he couldn’t tell Virgil! He couldn’t make him worry like that! Virgil would worry about messing up pronouns, and freak out if he corrected him. Gosh, Patton was a bad parent. He hated this. He hated all of this.

Virgil was giving him a look. Something was off here. “Are you sure? Would. Would you like a hug or something? Maybe tea, or like. A movie?” Man, the roles felt reversed right about now.

“Y-yeah. A hug might be nice,” Patton said. Virgil pulled him to his chest, snuggled up against him on the couch. Patton took a deep breath. Okay. Okay. It’s fine. He could keep this up.

Right?

It wasn’t an issue, really, until… Well. Until Deceit revealed himself to Thomas. Then it became a problem.

“Patton is the manliest man I’ve ever met,” Deceit mumbled. It was the Thursday after he was revealed, and ever since then, he’d been tagging along with the light sides more than anyone particularly liked. Roman was trying to pour himself a glass of water, and he was taken aback by the sudden Side by his ear.

“Jeez louise, don’t scare a guy like that,” Roman said. He took a short sip of the water, fixing his hair. “You know, Pat doesn’t have to be manly to live. He can like cooking and candy and dresses and still be a man. Ease up a little, won’t you?” Roman rolled his eyes. “And for god’s sake, stop speaking like it’s opposite day!” He turned to leave then, leaving Deceit alone in the kitchen. Something of a wicked grin was stuck upon his face.

“You know, Patton is very proud of his gender. He talks about it a lot,” Deceit said. This time he was leaning against the frame of Logan’s room, that stupid bowler cap pulled low over his forehead.

“I do not particularly care what Patton does as of late,” Logan said. He turned a page in the book he was reading, legs crossed on top of his bed. A replacement blue and black mug with parabolic and sine functions sat on the table next to him. “We have reached a standstill in communication. I believe this is related to the fact I did not inform him of my sexuality and romantic orientation. I do believe this is due to lying, as you tend to do notably well. So if you would kindly leave my room,” Logan said, looking up to meet Deceit’s eyes, “it would be appreciated.”

Deceit wasn’t even able to get a word out edgewise when it came to Virgil. Virgil hated him with a burning passion, and that wasn’t something Deceit was lying about. One time, finally, Deceit managed to sneak up on Virgil. He was wearing those noise-cancelling headphones again (and really, why would someone who  _was_  anxiety want those? Really, it made this whole operation easier.) Deceit moved around the back of the couch, looking down at Virgil. He moved one side of the headphones off of his ear, whispering low and uncomfortably close.

“Patton tells you everything.”

“What isn’t he telling me?” Virgil snapped around, glaring at the speaker. “Tell me. Now. I’m sick of hearing you as my deepest fears. For once in your life, be honest.”

“Oh, I’m always honest,” Deceit muttered, picking at the sleeve of his cape. “Besides. Patton clearly told you all about how she feels, yes?”

Virgil’s face went pale.

“You’re lying.”

“Lying? I never lie.” Deceit disappeared then, vanishing into midair. Virgil took a deep breath through his nose, his eyes narrowed thin.

A couple months passed from then. Virgil finally got around to telling Roman that Patton and Logan weren’t together anymore, and after awhile, it seemed like the two of them were finally back to normal. Or at least, as normal as they could be after this whole thing blew over. Virgil, though, was still on edge.

How was he supposed to bring this up? You can’t just _out_  someone. There are feelings involved, emotions to be taken care of. But you can’t expect them to come out to you, either, if their feelings are so nervous about the subject. Virgil just wanted to pull Patton into a hug and tell him it would all be okay. But… Could he?

“Hey Ro,” Virgil said. Roman was sitting in the commons, a storyboard set out on his lap, doodles lining the sides of the paper. He was tapping the brown clipboard, trying to focus. That wasn’t exactly his strong suit.

“How’s it going, Jeremy  _Fear_?”

Virgil sent him a look. “What?”

“You know, like Jeremy Heere. Be More Chill. You know…  _Michael in the bathroom_ ,” Roman sang, trying to jog Virgil’s memory. Virgil just shrugged, sitting down next to him on the couch.

“Ro, weird question. How did you come out?” Virgil said. Roman really turned now, looking at Virgil with a quirked eyebrow. “I mean. I wasn’t exactly there to see it. You guys didn’t really like me at that point, so it makes sense, and I was wondering how you managed, to, uh, you know--”

“Virgil. You and the other sides are the closest thing I’ve ever had to a family. I wanted to do some dramatic gesture, some over-the-top thing, but… I owed them more than that. I sat down with them, even brewed their favorite types of drinks. Hot chocolate for Patton, of course, and cinnamon coffee for Logan. I just poured my heart out. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do,” Roman said. He eyed Virgil again, the cogs in his brain spinning. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, uh, you know. For a friend,” Virgil said, standing up too abruptly. As odd as the statement sounded, it really was for a friend. Not that Roman would believe that in a million years.

“Uh-huh. Sure, Virge. For a friend,” Roman said, a smile creeping onto his face. “You know, I did say that it was hard, but I didn’t say it wasn’t worth it. Good luck.”

“Uh, yeah. Thanks,” Virgil said. He quickly left the room, Roman smiling after him. He had some hot chocolate to make.


End file.
